Government criticised over transparency of energy schemes

MPs have said the government must do more to demonstrate the value for money of green energy schemes which are ultimately paid for by bill payers.

The influential Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said it was promised in 2014 an annual report on the impact of these policies on energy bills.

But it has not seen once since.

The PAC also repeated previous concerns about over-optimistic forecasting in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS).

The government’s Levy Control Framework is supposed to control the cost of three low-carbon generation schemes, funded by levies on energy companies, which consumers pay for through their energy bills.

The PAC concluded that the framework had “suffered from a lack of transparency, rigour and accountability” and the forecasting of its costs had been poor.

The three schemes are:

The “renewables obligation”, which requires energy suppliers to either meet targets for buying a proportion of their energy from low-carbon generators, or pay a fee for any shortfall